


Notes From A Dirty Attic

by whatthefoucault



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Algeria, Baking, Bangkok, Bed-Stuy, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bread, Brooklyn, Bucharest, Bucky Barnes's Notebooks, Bucky Barnes's Plums, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The First Avenger, Childhood Memories, Coming of Age, Depression, Desert, Dreams, F/M, Food, Gay Bucky Barnes, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Los Angeles, M/M, Memories, Memory Loss, New York City, Nightmares, Parks and Rec - Freeform, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining Bucky Barnes, Pizza, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sexual Content, Siberia, Sleepy Cuddles, Stucky - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, Tamanrasset, Tuareg, Wakanda, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, World War II, implied clintkate, kosher baking, romania - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-06
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-21 23:53:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 10,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7410154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefoucault/pseuds/whatthefoucault
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I don't know what I'm doing.</p><p>My name is Bucky.  I come from Brooklyn.  I died in the war.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>(Extracts from the notebooks of Bucky Barnes.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bangkok

I don't know what I'm doing.

My name is Bucky. I come from Brooklyn. I died in the war.

Except that the historians got that last part wrong, and everyone else, I guess, because I must not be dead if I'm writing this down in a notebook in a scumbag motel outside the city, unless you believe in ghosts.

I don't believe in ghosts, that's stupid – no matter how much of a stranger I am among the living.

I knew that face. Couldn't hurt him. I woke up, and Steve was there. Old leather and Williams shaving soap.

I know that I know Steve. I save Steve. Always have. Little shit doesn't know what's good for him, so I protect him. I protect him because he's the love of my life. Now I protect him from me. Tomorrow I get the fuck out of here to... wherever the hell. Long as they don't speak Russian, it's a start.

I don't know where I'm going, or how much I remember, or how much of what I think I remember is true, but I'm going to try. How do you try to remember? Where are you supposed to start? It's like sitting down to write a science quiz at school, and the only question is "what do you know about science?" You're pretty sure that somewhere in you is a lot of things about science, and you can't conjure any.

My name is Bucky. I come from Brooklyn. I know Steve. I'm ~~how the hell old am I~~

~~what the hell happened to my arm anyway~~

~~why the fuck is so much missing~~

~~what the hell did I do~~

~~WHAT THE FUCK AM I~~

I'm going to remember how to be me, however that works. That's what I'm doing, I guess: what I have to.

\---

From the top.

My neighborhood was so brown then, all rows of tall brick townhouses sandwiched in tight like slices of cured meat in a fat deli sandwich. Pastrami, no mustard. Steve would get a frankfurter and an egg cream. What kind of weirdo decided to call it an egg cream if there's no eggs in it? The food is better now, and there's more of it. Townhouses stacked side by side like the not quite matched set of dusty encyclopedias on Becca's little bookshelf. She liked reading about animals, about kings and queens. She even liked reading about the weather. Weird kid.

And then there was me. Sneaking a cigarette down by the navy yard when no one was around, trying to look a lot more worldly than however the hell old I was. Fella in a nice pinstripe suit offered to buy me a whole new pack of smokes if I blew him once. Pretty sure I told him no. Pretty sure.

Okay, so maybe I liked the attention. Later, taking girls out to dance, all graceful and demure with their hair in curls and little shoes that click-click-clicked their way to the back of the club where the good bands played, a hand on your arm but hoping you wouldn't get sore if they weren't up for any kinda funny business – not that I was ever that kind of a jerk, ~~not that I was even interested if I WAS that kind of a jerk~~ Don't remember their names. Should I feel guilty about that? The girl always brought a friend, and I always brought Steve, but Steve didn't dance, and the girls never did pay him much attention. I tried to teach him, but it's hard to move gracefully with newspapers in your shoes. But I was always a good dancer; maybe that's why I fight so well. How easily a dance turns to a rumble.

I don't know what my neighborhood looks like now, if being there would help stir and revive memories, or if it's so changed it would leave me blank and sad. I could go back, try to find the places where we used to drink coffee and that big old tree in the park where we'd sit for hours and I would watch Steve do his drawings, see if the Dodgers are winning. ~~I could find our old home, where Steve and I would~~

As if any of it's still there. You can't expect Brooklyn to stand still for fucking decades. A neighborhood's a living organism, shaped and evolved by all the little parasites symbiotically occupying it, from surface to underbelly. Can't trust my memories, sure as hell can't trust Brooklyn not to lie to me.

Here, I'm as far from Brooklyn as anyone can be in the world. Now I eat rice from the little stands that line the street, illuminated by bare lightbulbs and flame. My room has one window that looks over the river. By midday, the smell of stagnant, standing water snakes up into the air from the river below, clinging to the walls, settling into my skin. I tell myself it's the humidity clouding my mind. But the food is good and it's so easy to get lost here, easy to hide down little streets where old men smoke endless hand-rolled cigarettes and play card games on upturned crates, or ladies on little boats argue over the prices of vegetables and flowers. I drink endless cups of coffee, thick and sweet. It's so easy to forget why you went for a walk in the first place. I won't stay here long.

\---

Goddamn nightmare again.

~~Goddamn~~

It isn't me, it isn't me and I don't do that anymore, and when I did, I didn't

Stop ~~STOP~~

Okay. I'm making eggs for breakfast. I've always been good at eggs. You scramble them a little with a fork, not too much if you want a nice texture. Wait until the water comes to the boil, and stir the living shit out of it, like you would if you were poaching, otherwise it just sinks and sticks. Put the lid on for 30 seconds or so once you've poured it in and let it swirl around itself, lift it onto a plate, sprinkle of salt, and you're done. Remember this one. I've always been good at eggs. Steve used to love when I made these. Full of protein, I'd tell him. Keep your strength up. I'm fine, he'd tell me. My kid sister'll be taller than you soon, I'd say. But he loved those eggs.

My name is Bucky. I come from Brooklyn. I've always been good at eggs.


	2. London

I wake and Steve is there. The first morning sun casts a bright sliver over his face and he squints and bats at it like a petulant kitten, so small. I move to bring him nearer, fold him back under the warm blankets next to me and snuggle down until we can't put off breakfast any longer. I wake again, and the sky is veiled in dull grey, and I'm alone. That's good; I don't want him to see me like this.

I ride out of the city as far as I can go, until the wind quiets the sound of the memories I'm trying not to think of, and I find a space to stop and gather myself. On a clear day you can see France from here, they tell me, but it's grey and thick as old oatmeal and I can't see shit.

The smell of the Kent coast in winter is bracing and fresh.

The wind could blow me away, impassive and strong, like I'm nothing. The white cliffs are crumbling; the land grows a little smaller every year. I could just as easily crumble away, fall into dust, become almost nothing. Why don't I?

Instead, I ride all afternoon back to the city, to make dinner. It's cold, and I remember how to make matzo ball soup. So much of me has been pummelled out, erased, mashed into an incomprehensible jumble and blown away like vapor trails fading into the sky, but some things are so embedded in my muscle memory that nothing can shake them. Matzo ball soup is one of them.

It's easy to disappear into the city; it's easy to be unseen, to become no one. One of the good things about London is the people's steadfast refusal to acknowledge anyone or anything as they make their way here and there. There's a lot they politely decline to admit to having seen.

There's still a little itch that nags at the back of my mind all the time. It tells me I'm not safe; it tells me I'm dangerous. It tells me that anyone I meet might be a threat, or that I might hurt them thinking they are. It tells me I'm going to be dragged back to hell by the sons of bitches who stuck needles in me and tried to burn away my name. ~~It tells me I'm not~~

It's raining now, a soft sheet of white noise outside the window. I don't know how long I spent watching the little drops fall onto the sidewalk below, and stopped thinking. The chicken stock is simmering with the carrots and the onions, a little celery and a few peppercorns for good measure. I keep the radio on; just quiet enough that I can hear if trouble's caught up with me, but the radio is good. Even if some of the songs are pretty crummy, most of them are good. I like songs that make me think of the mountains in autumn.

I remember how to make soup, but forget how to sleep. You wouldn't think it's possible to forget how to do something as basic as sleep, until you try and you fail and you fail and you fucking fail until you think you're destined to descend into a gibbering, shaking mess and then probably die when your nervous system declares fuck this and gives up the ghost, and then you pass out at six in the goddamn morning only to spend the night trapped inside your mind, running from memories that remind you that you do not deserve to be at peace, ever.

I won't stay here long.

\---

Sometimes this TV show comes on about some Americans who work for a local government. There's this blonde lady called Leslie who's so positive. She just wants to make a difference to her world, to do what's right, and fight for what she believes in. And she's really funny too. She reminds me of Steve.

I'm pretty sweet on her.

I used to dance. I was good. I could have charmed the pants off of just about anybody, if I wanted to. It's hard to remember moving in that way now, but sometimes, when the radio's on and the song is good, I catch myself moving with a little swing in my hips, without meaning to. I guess some muscle memories dug their heels in and refused to be shifted. I could just about get Steve to shuffle in time with a song, in time with a record at home – something slow, not too challenging, but still enough to have him falling all over himself, and me. He may be a hell of a lot bigger now, but lord knows I still wouldn't trust him to lead.

Will I remember if I try again? If the radio's on and the song's good and Steve's there, will he still let me lead? Maybe I'll ask him, when I'm ready. ~~Maybe we'll be~~ Oh, forget it.

\---

Some nights, it's the same dream. I dream of the first time I died. Turns out that when you're falling, moments stretch into a lifetime. I fall into my mind and time slows almost to a stop.

I see Steve reaching back and falling away above me, further and further out, and I can never reach him. I see his face, so afraid and so sad, and I want to fly to him and pull him into my arms. I want to hold him tight and tell him everything is going to be fine, he's going to be fine; more than that, he's going to be amazing.

I know I'm already dead long before my body can land and break. The free fall gives you a lot of time to make peace with that. I dreamed a good life for Steve on the way down, the wife and the kids, a little garden to paint in and a space on the road for his motorbike. Maybe he'd tell the kids stories about when he was young, and the kinds of shenanigans he'd get up to with Uncle Bucky - well, deliberately forgetting a few of the less kid-friendly details, and all the queer stuff. Maybe it's better this way, I tell myself, better than Uncle Bucky already half in the bag when he comes over for Sunday dinner, staring into nothing.

Then everything falls away, time and space, sound and vision and feeling, and I'm weightless, and I'm at peace, and I know everything is going to be fine.

So it always comes as a surprise, almost a disappointment, when I wake up.


	3. The War

Thing is, I killed people back when I had the choice. Maybe I saved more than I killed, and maybe the ones I killed would have done more damage to the world, given the chance, but I don't know how you quantify these things. Is there a certain ratio of people you've saved to people you've killed before you can feel like a better person?

And then there's after the war. It wasn't me, and I didn't choose what they made me, but it stains my conscience all the same. I could add that count to my tally, I could lose myself to useless arithmetic, but I wonder if I'll lose what's left of my mind if I dwell on them long enough to count them all. Dwelling won't raise the dead.

We were there with the Commandos: pints were flowing and songs sung, and in spite of having to look up instead of down to steal a glance into those damn pretty eyes of his, Steve was still my Steve. Jim Morita and James Montgomery Falsworth, Jimmy Dugan and James Jones and James Dernier. Was Steve the only one not called James? That can't be right. I was called James too, but my real name is Bucky.

I asked Steve if he was keeping the outfit. It was corny as hell, that thing, all bold and snug and covered in stars, but he looked, I don't know. He looked strong. Like his exterior matched what was on the inside, all principles and stupid, stupid fists, and so beautiful. He said it was starting to grow on him, and he drew near me in a way that reminded me of that one night, before the war.

"Aren't you afraid they'll see?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said, but he kissed me anyway.

At least I think that's what happened.

I probably should have been afraid of them seeing too, but right then, all I could think about was Steve. I was in love with Steven Grant Rogers, and I didn't give a good goddamn what anybody else had to say about it.

And then in walked Carter, so smart and so brave and lovely, and looked up at Steve with big brown eyes, and I was invisible, small, and afraid.

I was afraid even before the war. I wanted the world to see what I saw when I looked at him, but I knew that meant he wouldn't always be mine. And I knew that one day, he'd meet a girl who was whip-smart and beautiful and kind, and they'd make a life together. That's what people did, and that's what he deserved: more than a life lived half in the shadows, behind closed doors with secret passwords and whispers and giggles and disapproving looks, sympathetic smiles from the elderly woman who lives next door with her cats, who's been through enough wars not to judge. Steve deserved to live in the sunshine.

I'd come over to visit sometimes, and maybe it would be great, but maybe the kids would ask why Uncle Bucky always looked so sad. Maybe I'd stop coming around after that.

Maybe Steve would get mad, and demand to know why I'd turned into such a jerk, when we used to be such good friends. Maybe I'd look at him, with his eyes as full of goodness as ever, and melt away like a candy bar in a kid's pocket. Maybe I'd tell him it's because I'm still in love with him, and part of me just wants to see him happy, but part of me knew that a time would come when I just didn't fit into that happiness. So I'd go back to my fleabag one-room apartment, bang out a couple of bad books' worth of sad poetry, listen to bebop jazz records and drink whiskey and wine and watch myself disintegrate until there's nothing left of Bucky Barnes but an empty cocoon from which I have emerged a hollow-eyed, shuffling monster, just waiting for the right moment to drink myself off the subway platform in time for the L train.

Can't even write happy endings into my own fucking fantasies. Maybe it was for the best that neither of us survived the war.

The next morning, the boys chasing their hangovers with strong coffee and powdered eggs, I squirreled a little hair of the dog into mine when I thought no one was looking.

"I'd say we learned a lot last night, Sarge," Morita said to me, grimacing against the last slug of his second cup. "For one thing, Captain Rogers is into brunettes."

I shot him what I hoped was a smile and a nod, but tight-lipped enough I suspect it wasn't convincing. He leaned in a little closer to me.

"And for another thing, you're into blondes," he said with a smile. Well, shit, I thought, but he clapped me on the shoulder. "Hey, we're not gonna give you trouble. Just don't go getting your heart broken."

\---

Steve was an artist. He went to school for it for a while, but had to drop out with all the sick days he took. Missed too many lessons, the lazy shit.

There was this fella he looked up to, an illustrator who did all these ads for men's shirts and things, Saturday Evening Posts, all that jazz. The men in his pictures were the pinnacle of American masculinity and all that, dignified and beautiful, thoughtful and strong. Powerful stuff for selling shirts, I guess. What most people don't know was that the fella was a big old flaming queer, and modelled his most famous paintings on his hot beefsteak of a lover.

Steve was at least as good as that guy. Guess you could say I'm biased, but it doesn't mean it isn't true. I let him draw me sometimes, when he needed a live model to draw from.

"Maybe someday you'll be the face of fine men's socks," he'd say, but I'm not sure he intended the implications. Kept my clothes on that time, though, unlike the standard classical nude study. There might have been one time, but that's my unreliable mind for you; that memory straddles a line that tips pretty quickly over into a lot of stuff I know didn't happen, much as a part of me wishes it had. I know because I remember, better than a lot of other stuff I ought to remember, the one time it did happen.

Jesus. I remember all this shit but not the school I went to, or the color of my mom's hair, or my own goddamn shoe size.

\---

Button up your overcoat  
When the wind is free  
Take good care of yourself  
You belong to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editor's note:
> 
> The illustrator Bucky mentions is an American fellow named J.C. Leyendecker. [Here's a good example of one of his works](http://jcleyendecker.tumblr.com/post/143708650822/gonewildandhorn-jc-leyendecker). Just guys being pals.


	4. Los Angeles

~~Why the fuck does anybody live in Los Angeles~~

Why am I in Los Angeles?

Maybe this is what I deserve. Endless rows of boulevards, too wide and too bright, and too loud, people on rollerskates old enough to know better, 90 minutes on a goddamn bus just to get to the supermarket, and dark metal bars on my windows. There's some heavy symbolism for you. Are the bars to keep the world out, or to keep me contained? I won't stay here long.

Against my better judgment – if I have any left to spare – I stopped at a bar near the beach on the way home. The music was bad and loud, the people too clean: straight out of the office, after-work drinks probably, if the incomprehensible jargon-filled conversations that floated past me were any indication. A woman set a well-worn bag by my feet with a heavy clatter.

She didn't look like she belonged here any more than I did. She was pretty, that's for damn sure – small, but strong. Definitely not the kind of lady you try to let down gently with "I'm dangerous company, and I wouldn't like to see a nice dame like you getting hurt because you got close to me" rhetoric. She pulled off her dark sunglasses as she sat next to me, and I could see that one eye was pillowed in a deep purple bruise. Yeah, this was a girl who knew how to handle herself.

"You sure look like you could use a drink," she said to me. Her smile revealed a chipped tooth. It was cute; reminded me of the time Becca tripped over her rollerskates and knocked out her two front teeth. She looked like such a goof until they grew back. But this lady's tooth wouldn't grow back, and from the looks of her, she was probably dodging the dental bill as long as she could bear it.

"Yeah, you too," I said.

And then she kind of stared at me with big, insistent eyes until I fished out enough pocket change for a couple of whiskies.

I tried to find a way of tactfully asking if she was okay – I'm not so good at that kind of thing anymore – but she just smiled.

"You should see the other guys," she said.

I could believe it. It was clear she had plenty of fight in her, just like Steve did. It wasn't that he liked getting socked in the face – at least I don't think he did – but the little punk had so much damn goodness in him, he couldn't sit idly by and let assholes be assholes. That's where I came in, to save him from his own self-destructive sense of principle. That's my Stevie, what a fucking idiot.

She said I looked like I had a story to tell. I told her I didn't. I do, but not to strangers, and not if I don't even know how to tell it to myself, or how much of it is true, how much I can't remember or want to forget.

She downed her drink and beckoned me outside, and I followed.

"This is the best thing about LA, right here," she said. The street ran straight down to the beach, and from where we stood, we could see the sun making its way down for the night behind the water, leaving sparkling trails of red and yellow and purple, the sky alive and on fire.

She told me her story. I couldn't offer much in return, but I think it was the telling that mattered to her then. It was clear there were details she was sparing me, and probably for the best. She mentioned his name, the fella she left out east, but I didn't catch it. It wasn't my business.

"Whatever you're looking for, I hope you find it," she told me. She gave me a soft, sad smile, and placed her hand on my arm. I couldn't remember the last time anyone had touched me out of kindness and not malice.

This is probably why my first instinct, before my lumbering thoughts could catch up, was to pull away, grabbing her by the wrist. Next thing I knew, I was on my back, and she was perched heavy on my chest, pointing some kind of arrow at me. We stared at each other wide-eyed for a long moment, searching.

I'm sure I used to be a hell of a lot better at making friends.

"Huh," was all she said. The panic receded. She shifted her weight from me, holding a hand out to help me up. I took it, without thinking, before I remembered the arm.

"Nice hand," she said. "Please tell me it's a superhero thing, and not a supervillain thing. It'd be just my luck, I swear."

"It's neither," I told her. "I don't do that, now... I'm just nobody." She caught me staring at her arrow.

"It's... set to stun," she said, slipping it back in her purse. "Doesn't do any real damage. Always prepared, though."

She seemed something of a kindred spirit, and ~~if I wasn't such a damn fuckup~~ if I were in a place to consider making friends, she seemed a likely candidate.

"Sometimes I think maybe I should just pack up and go back to Brooklyn," she said, leaning against the wall beside us, "but there's just some stuff you have to do, you know? That's what I'm doing."

"You're from Brooklyn?" I asked her.

"Brooklyn's my home," she said, with this little smile – the sort of smile I think I used to get when Steve's sweater sleeves were just a little bit too long on him.

"Mine too," I said.

"You should go back there," she told me. "Get out of this godforsaken hell hole before it kills you and replaces your body with an evil decoy."

Fucked if I understood the reference, but the sentiment, I got it. I told her, sometimes you can't go home. She looked like she understood.

"Then be safe," she said. "And let me know if you ever need a superhero."

She gave me her number and went home. I'm not going to call her. Sounded like she's already carrying the baggage of one idiot too many.

\---

Last night was a different dream. It was back when Steve and I were kids, having ice creams at the old drugstore soda bar. We disagreed about flavors – he's still wrong about coconut, but then, when he wasn't looking, I leaned in and whispered into his bad ear:

Steve Rogers, I'll love you 'til the day I die.

Except that this never happened, and I fell asleep with the TV on.

The real time I told Steve I loved him for the first time, unless I'm misremembering this one too, was the time he was knocked out by fierce pneumonia, not long after we moved in together. It seemed downright unfair that somebody as good as Steve could be saddled with such a crummy set of lungs. I guess it was a good thing I'd somehow absorbed my mom's recipe for soup, since it's all we ate for a good 2 months until he was well enough to be eating sandwiches and thinking about going back to work.

I was pretty proud at the time that Steve went from "what the hell is this, hot chicken water?" to "not half bad, Barnes, not bad at all," to "yes, yes, your soup is delicious and the matzo balls are cooked to perfection, but after all this time, I swear I would give what's left of my lungs for a hot dog with ketchup and crispy onions."

We adjusted living arrangements pretty quickly: with him hacking up his lungs all night, I wasn't about to let him sleep on the sofa. It wasn't a big bed, but there was room enough to share, even if he did protest – "I'm not a damn kid, Buck," he would tell me – and I felt better knowing I was maybe keeping him warm. That one night, he'd exhausted himself from coughing pretty quickly, but I was awake with worry.

"You'd better get better soon," I whispered against his soft hair. "I love you, you dumb bunny."

"Who you callin' a dumb bunny?" he mumbled, still half-asleep. "I'll fight you."

That brought on a new coughing fit, which I couldn't help but know was my fault. Then, just as we were both drifting to sleep, in a voice so small I might have dreamed it, I heard:

"I love you too."

One of us probably could have moved back to the sofa once Steve was on the mend, but we didn't. I guess we both found we just slept better that way. Maybe that's another one of the reasons rest is so hard to come by for me now.


	5. Near The Beach

So I wasn't prepared to run into the New Yorker a week later, buying dog food, but she seemed pleased to see me, at least at first. Maybe the old Barnes charm is still buried in here somewhere. I almost wondered if she was working for someone – CIA, or whoever – but whatever would have gone down if she was would have happened back at the bar that first evening. Pretty sure that bow and arrow's not standard issue for agents, but what the hell do I know.

If her basket's any indication, at least the dog's well fed. I'd have offered to buy her, I don't know, some bagels or something, if we hadn't been interrupted.

~~Goddamn fucking son of a bitch motherfucking IDIOT~~

I asked her what cheese was good. I don't remember which ones she told me. Asshole tourist in front of us at the cheese counter wouldn't put his phone down long enough to get in an order; I wasn't paying attention but I could tell he wasn't speaking English, and then he glanced over at me, and I recognised a word.

What happened after was a blur.

Next thing I'm sure about, I was huddled beside a dumpster a few blocks away, my heart jackhammering against my ribcage, telling myself my name, like a pathetic fucking mantra. Somewhere beyond the whooshing thrum of my pulse there was a voice.

"Hey, hey Brooklyn." It was my friend. I slowly loosened the hold on my glock, and tucked it away. "Look at me. Do you know where you are?"

Truth be told, I'm not sure I did. The memory of a dozen skirmishes had mashed themselves together and told me I was there, wherever that was. I tried to focus on her face, the rainbow of purple that was slowly fading under her eye.

"You're safe," she told me. "Do you recognise me?"

I told her I did.

"Good," she said. "Deep breaths, now."

I tried. I asked her if anybody was dead. She shook her head.

"No, no," she assured me. "You dropped your basket and pulled a gun on that guy, shouted no, and... bolted."

"Why are you being so kind?" I asked. I didn’t understand it.

"I know a kindred spirit when I see one," she told me. "I'm not saying you don't look like you can handle yourself, but... are you sure you don't have business you need resolving?"

I told her no, but she walked me back to her little home by the beach anyway, and made me a bowl of cereal. Her dog let out a tired huff and sat at my feet. I apologised for interrupting her errands.

"Oh, don't be a futzing idiot," she said, smiling. "We're friends. Besides, I just seem to be inexorably drawn to grown-ass men who have a ton of shit to work through. I'll probably have to add that supermarket to the list of places I'm banned from, but hey, the dog likes you."

Must be a pretty stupid dog, I figured, but I stayed, and asked her to tell me about Brooklyn. She told me about having beers on the rooftop of their building, and travelling to Bushwick for the best pizza, taking her dog to the park.

I asked her if that one little bakery was still there, the one where, if we had a few pennies to scrape together, Steve and I would dash there as soon as we could on Fridays, racing against sundown, to get a couple of our favourite little buttery cookies, filled with sweet jam. Sometimes, the baker would throw in one of the soft challah rolls for free, a special treat for his two favorite customers, he would say. She said she thought she knew it, and all the stupid hope I'd apparently been trying to keep down came tumbling out of me, and I wept into my cereal. Real classy, Bucky. Way to impress the ladies.

I could feel her hand almost on my shoulder.

"Is this okay?" she asked. I must have nodded, because the next thing I knew, I found myself folded into a hug. My body had exhausted itself: the need to be safe overrode the instinct to run. It felt... it helped.

"You're safe," she told me. Said she had a shitload of arrows and wasn't afraid to use them, that it was a point of pride that she never missed. I believed her.

We sat together and watched tv for a few hours, the show about the people who go to college and are bad at it, but the college is also bad at being a college. There was a lot in it I didn't understand; maybe because my nerves were still raw and humming, or maybe because I'm a fucking grandpa. She offered me her sofa for the night, but I figured it'd be better for everybody if I were just to scram as soon as I knew she was asleep.

I was grateful to that lady, with her arrows and her little house on the beach that smelled of lilacs, but I couldn't stay. Hell, if her fella back in Brooklyn's anything like me, the girl really needs to make better friends.

\---

When I was 16, cocky and stupid and a goddamn innocent cherub who thought he was really something, I had my first big awakening. Steve needed a figure to practice his life drawing, and I didn't have anything better to do.

Steve was concentrating real hard on getting all the lines and shapes right, I could tell by the way he kept looking at me, then looking at the sketchbook, scrunching up his face in that cute way he did when he was thinking. What caught my eye, though, was the little expanse of smooth skin that showed where the top buttons of his crisp white shirt were unfastened, and the littlest hint of the soft curvature of his collarbone beneath. It was so stupid; not like I'd never seen the skinny little punk in a hell of a lot less than a shirt and trousers, but that day, I saw that little slip of collarbone and wondered how it would feel to rest my hands on Steve's shoulders and press a kiss against that little patch of skin, to feel his pulse quickening beneath my lips, and what whispers of joy I could draw from him. I realised that I wanted to make Steve happy more than anything else in my life, and that some of the ways I wanted to make him happy definitely involved a lot of necking, heavy petting, and possibly even the kind of fooling around that comes after third base.

I was pulled from my dreamings by the sudden awareness than I'd gone as stiff as a goddamn beer bottle, and posing in nothing but my goddamn underpants, it wasn't going to pass unnoticed for long. I excused myself and all but ran to the bathroom, splashing my face with ice cold water and thinking about President Herbert Hoover until my damn prick went down. So that was that, I thought to myself: I didn't just love my best friend, I was in love with him. And I have been ever since.

\---

I wake, and Steve is there. The California sun agrees with him, it seems, and he's got more color in his cheeks than I can remember seeing in ages. I trace the curve of his shoulder with my fingertip; he catches my hand and presses a kiss into my palm.

"Mmm, too early," he murmurs in my ear. "Go back to sleep, Buck."

I'm too exhausted to argue.

The California sun is cut into slices by the bars over my window. The sheets on the other side of the bed are as undisturbed as they ever have been. I wake up crying again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editor's note:
> 
> I may have taken the liberty of doing a little sketch of our LA woman, [which you can find here](http://whatthefoucault.tumblr.com/post/147191915606/you-sure-look-like-you-could-use-a-drink-she).


	6. Tamanrasset

~~The thing about memory is~~ Life is almost staggeringly resilient. The brain's ability to compensate, to fill in the blanks and restore, it's really something. I was never gone; I just sleepwalked for years. Sleepwalked, sleep-fought, sleep-murdered. No wonder sleep never comes easily now.

What did it, what broke me open? Steve's face, his true words, the smell of leather and Williams shaving soap. Recognition is always easier than recall. If I sit in my tiny room and ask myself, "who are you," I can tell you my name, and then I, well, what the hell else?

But things bring me back: a song or a picture, the smell of matzo ball soup, the color of a sunset, and suddenly I'm back in Brooklyn, reading the newspaper on a lazy Sunday morning, listening to the neighbors shouting across to each other as they hang their clean laundry on their balconies.

What was I good at in school? Did I go to school? What the hell was my job? Why are these things just beyond my reach, but I remember that that bar where all the poets used to hang out was the St. George, where I bought Stevie his first whiskey and he got himself a split lip for throwing his dukes up when one of the guys from the warehouse ran into us on our way home and made the mistake of calling us a couple of pansies. I remember I was named after the queerest president of the United States of America, though I can't imagine that was mom's reasoning: if she told me why, I don't remember it.

\---

I was lucky the motorbike held out until I hit the outskirts of Tamanrasset, before breaking down. I left it for dead.

Tariq, who helped me roll it out of the road, invited me to stay with him for a while, but it feels wrong to take up space and contribute nothing. He says that a person doesn't need to be useful to be worthy of kindness. He smokes hand-rolled cigarettes and wears the tighest jeans I've ever seen, walks with a swagger that I feel like I used to carry before I was whatever the hell I've become. He calls me Azerwal; because of my eyes, he tells me. 

His mother is teaching me to make bread. She thinks I'm funny, says baking bread is women's work, but I tell her I want to learn, so she's humoring me. It feels good to do something with my hands, to create something good. I feel the dough forming between my fingers and I can stop thinking for a while: all that there is in the moment is flour and water, learning to feel how they change each other. She says my loaves are the wrong shape, but I can't tell the difference. No, no, no, she says, laughing as she shakes her head and shows me how to shape the dough again. I still can't see what I'm doing wrong. It all tastes as good.

One evening, we drive out into the desert beyond the city, Tariq and I and four of his friends, piled into the back of a red pickup truck, singing songs with the radio turned up loud as the dust kicks up around us and the sun recedes behind the looming, strange hills.

(I half expect a hole in the ground and a bullet to the back of my head as soon as we get far enough from anyone; some part of me might still have been relieved at it. I half expect something like it everywhere I go. I'm amazed I've managed to keep running this long without being caught.)

We sit under a few trees and set a pot over a fire to make endless cups of sweet mint tea, and eat sticky dates and fresh goat's cheese. The stars are different, but the clarity of that night sky reminds me of that one night in Brooklyn, not long before we went to the war, a night that might not have happened. My mind doesn't always know. For a few moments, I forget, and am calm.

The spare room is small and the walls as thin as newspaper, and Tariq tells me I've been talking in my sleep. He asks me what happened to Steve. I tell him I don't want to talk about it.

I won't stay here long.

\---

There was that one night, not long before we went to the war, when the stars had never been so bright and neither of us could sleep. When I realised just where my hand had been resting on his thigh, I could have pulled away. I could have pulled away, rolled over, and feigned sleep, but I didn't. I let my hand speak my intention.

"Bucky," he whispered, a question.

"Stevie," I told him, a promise.

As for who kissed who first, I guess we kissed each other: like everything we did best, we did it together. Damn near came in my pants from the warmth of his breath on my neck. What came next was frantic and fumbling, pyjamas kicked to the foot of the bed, and there was my Steve, skin luminous under the little starlight that that had tiptoed in through the window, trembling and sure. Then his hands were everywhere, and so were mine; memorizing every angle and curve of him, his cock pressed hard against my hip. Together, we were weightless and perfect, so holy and so beautiful. He whispered my name and I came just before he did, spilling over our bellies, breathless. I remember reverently dabbing at the mess I left over him with my shirt, and we fell into slumber without another word, inextricably entwined together and blanketed by stars.

This wasn't a little bit of fooling around, this wasn't sleepwalking or an idle experiment. This was an awakening.

(Or maybe this is a story I've told myself so many times that it feels no different to a memory.)

But Steve Rogers awakens my heart. Steve Rogers is the thread that tethers me to the world.


	7. Bucharest

Bucharest is a wonderland of museums and gardens, wide streets and big skies. There are a lot of places here to lay low and keep busy.

I'm in a cafe that's full of light, all white-painted brick walls and pale wood. The barista shoots me a look as I shovel another spoonful of sugar into my flat white, so I shoot a look back – one hand resting on my gun, just in case – but he just shrugs and turns back to his work, steaming a beaker of milk. I can't remember what the hell it felt like not to be prepared to run like the goddamn wind at any moment.

~~GREAT~~

Thought I saw Steve from across the street. Just for a second, I saw his face, so earnest and filled with love, but before I could grab my notebook and my bag and go over and ~~tell him it's me and I miss him so damn much and~~ I don't even know what the hell I would have done, but when I looked back, I saw it wasn't Steve at all. Just some blonde schmoe with broad shoulders and a lousy haircut, and my mind's wishful thinking. I've been alone a long damn time, but that doesn't mean I'm any good at it.

\---

There's an older lady who lives in the apartment next door. She came over today with food, which makes me think that either she thinks I don't know how to feed myself, or she's lonely. If my instinct is worth shit these days, at least it's telling me I can trust her. She's nice, but in that way that says she's seen some real tough shit in her day.

Of all the things that could be the the unifying thread that ties the world together, I don't think most people think of dumplings. But I swear, just about everywhere I've run to and run from, there have been dumplings: small and stuffed with spicy vegetables, or delicately filled with aromatic broth, or sitting in big soft lumps over a rich meat stew. (And matzo balls, obviously.) Romania's the first place I've been where they stuff them with plums. And it's a goddamn work of art: soft and plump, filled with warm fruit, and covered in sweet, buttery breadcrumbs. I'm not sure I deserve this kind of comfort.

But Marta says she'll show me how to make them, if I bring some plums over. I'd like that.

\---

THESE ARE BAD  
runny eggs  
sriracha  
pickled beets  
peach yogurt  
tripe  
red onions  
salted licorice  
iced tea  
udon noodles  
lamb and mint sauce  
Hostess cupcakes

THESE ARE GOOD  
Spanish omelette  
strawberry jam  
asparagus  
pork belly and applesauce  
rhubarb and custard  
Swedish meatballs  
mangoes  
iced coffee  
smoked salmon  
potato chips – paprika flavor  
plum dumplings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editor's note:
> 
> If you want to know more about Bucky's time in Bucharest, I would direct you to [The Season For Plums, an account by his neighbour.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6801343)


	8. Siberia

It's all gone to shit.

I wasn't ready when he found me. I'd had plans, for when I was ready, when I felt like I remembered enough, maybe to show up on his doorstep with flowers, to tell him how sorry I was for being such a goddamn mess, to ask him, I don't know, to ask him something, and then there he was just when I was ready to run, or fight, or die.

I was going to make dumplings with my neighbour. I bought plums. They were good, sweet.

But Steve was there when it all went to shit. He was there, and he got me out. ~~Now his life's a mess and it's my fucking fault and his friends are mad at him and I AM NOT WORTH THIS TO ANYBODY~~

Even that blonde lady he kissed, Sharon, who doesn't know me at all, and was really nice about helping us get the fuck out anyway. Well played, Steve. I'd be jealous and maybe just a little I am but if that debt of gratitude didn't warrant a kiss on the mouth in repayment, I don't know what would have. He's got a lot of people who care about him now; I mean, look at him. I'm so fucking proud of that stupid little shit.

Steve asked me if I remembered him. I wanted to tell him how much I hated myself for ever forgetting.

I remember the first time I saved Steve. Sure, little Rogers, sure you could have taken that son of a bitch three times your size with nothing but sheer force of will, extreme stubborn refusal to stay down, and a pair of skinny fists to fly into his ugly mug. Sure you could, but not before breaking a couple of ribs first, and maybe losing some teeth. What the hell kind of friend would I be to let you make goddamn Picasso painting of that beautiful face of yours? I mean geez, your face is a goddamn work of art already, Steve. I never stood a chance; it was love at first sight, even before I knew what that meant.

I don't think Sam trusts me. That's smart, though – I wouldn't trust me either. Just fire off a goddamn Russian shopping list at me and away I go. What's to trust? I don't trust myself.

He seems like a good friend. I can see why Steve likes him.

Unless he's reading my notebook, in which case I take it all back.

SAM WILSON, YOU HAD BETTER NOT BE READING THIS OR SO HELP ME

YOU'RE A LOUSY BUM AND I HATE YOU, SAM WILSON. A REAL LOUSY BUM.

One of the downsides to the amount I do remember, catalogued in grim detail in my mind, is knowing with almost alarming clarity that I have almost definitely shot that Natasha lady, at least once, and now it turns out she's one of Steve's best friends and she's helped us steal a goddamn jet and I have definitely shot her before. I feel like such an ass.

Though I guess, if I let myself dwell on it enough, and I do dwell on it a lot, I should feel a hell of a lot worse about the number of people I shot who came away from it a hell of a lot worse than Natasha did. She's strong. Steve's got some good friends – family, even.

It's got to be another couple of hours to Siberia and Steve's not saying much right now. I don't know what he sees when he looks at me. Does he still see the cocky bastard who swaggered off to war, or does he see the metal-plated husk who stumbled out of the fucking fridge and can't remember how to get home? I suppose Siberia was home for a time, inasmuch as I slept here – if you can call it sleep. Siberia made me forget how to sleep, and I'm still not sure I remember. Siberia rubbed my name out every time I tried to write it back down. Not exactly the first place on my list of past residences I'm keen to check up on, for damn sure. I know he knows this, I'm sure he knows I'm afraid. But if I can do some good here, I have to.

How do you judge someone like me? It wasn't my fault, Steve tells me. They took away my choice, made me do things I wouldn't have ever done if I'd been able to fight back, to tell them no, to leave. I know this, but knowing this doesn't bring back the dead. It may have been the intentions of others enacted through me without my permission, but it was still my hands fulfilling those intentions. I don't know if I can forgive myself for that.

What's the measure of a good person? Is it intention, or what you do? Is it what you aspire to be, is it how you make amends? I sleepwalked for years through a waking nightmare. Was my punishment having done it, or going on afterwards, with that knowledge? My memory is a card catalogue of atrocities; I desperately wrench out every ugly old wooden drawer, and each is filled with blood.

I know I'm being fucking selfish to let myself think this way, but it does feel good to be near Steve again. It feels harmonious. I thought I'd forgotten how easy it could be to be with someone, but of course it was. It was Steve. 

Steve just broke the silence again.

"Whatever we both are, whatever we've been through, you're still my best friend," he told me. "I'll always choose you."

I told him the same, and then I wrote this down ~~to keep myself from saying something dumb.~~

I wonder if Steve remembers that time we had to hitch a ride in the back of a freezer truck all the way from Rockaway Beach, because some skinny little dummy just had to get hot dogs with our train money. That was the only time I haven't minded being that cold, freezing our asses off, but that was me and Steve, and everything we did best, we did together. I gave him my jacket when he started to shiver, which only made him look smaller, and we held each other close for warmth, my arms tight around him, as he snuggled in close.

"Hey Buck?" he said to me. "I had such a good day with you. It was perfect."

That was when I'd normally have said something smartass about how really swell it was to be shivering half to death in the back of a bumpy truck, but right then, all I could think to say was

"Yeah, it was."


	9. Wakanda

It's done.

No, no, I understand why Stark was angry. I deserved that. Wasn't like I still needed my fucking arm or anything though, buddy. Not like it doesn't still fucking HURT LIKE A GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH having that ripped out of my fucking shoulder. Maybe I deserved that, too.

I don't know if this is something a person can apologise for. Hey buddy, sorry I killed your parents back when some assholes fried my brain and used me against my will to do dirty murder business for fucking years. Jesus, why don't I just send goddamn flowers? You can't make amends for that. Wouldn't blame any of Steve's friends being sore at me now, really.

I'm grateful his highness gave up trying to kill me. He's a real classy gentleman, it turns out. He's got principle. Hell, he's even offered to put me up for an extended stay; not sure I'll be much of a courteous houseguest though, sleeping all day and not bothering to turn up for dinner.

 ~~Why the fuck did I think I could~~ If I could just be with Steve, if I could just be normal and safe, I'd throw a fucking party. I missed him so much for so long. But I can't keep putting him and his friends in danger. He deserves better than that, than me. But maybe I can get better, or at least get out of the way in the meantime. He can still have some kind of a good life.

I don't want to go to sleep again, and I'm scared, and I hope Steve's not reading this while I'm out

~~STEVEN GRANT ROGERS YOU NOSEY LITTLE SHIT  
YOU HAD BETTER NOT BE READING THIS RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME~~

Look. I did it because I love you, Steve. You know that, right?

Just don't forget to thaw me back out, punk. And eat your eggs while I'm out. Full of protein, keeps your strength up. Puts hair on your chest. I love you so much, Stevie. Don't do anything stupid while I'm asleep.


	10. Brooklyn

Wakanda makes a good cup of coffee. I don't know much about farming and all that, being a born-and-raised Brooklynite, but I've had a lot of coffee, and this stuff definitely expresses a very specific terroir, if that's the word I'm looking for. That thing where it tastes like where it's grown. That. They grow it in the hills not far from where I slept, and it's smooth and sweet, and something that almost hints at lemon meringue pie – which sounds stupid because it's a fucking cup of coffee, but damn. It's good.

When Steve was accepted to art school, I took him out to celebrate at the nicest place we could afford; wasn't much, admittedly, because we couldn't afford much, but I was so proud of him. I figured that I'd either need to celebrate his acceptance or commiserate if he was rejected, so I spent weeks scrimping on my lunches to get a few extra pennies together for a real nice dinner. I don't remember where it was, or what we ate, except for dessert. We split the lemon meringue pie. It was so soft, with almost buttery sharp lemon curd under a mountain of egg whites, just the right amount of color on the top. It would have been real romantic, if... no, you know what? The hell with it. I’m a goddamn queer and I’m in love with my best friend. You’re damn right it was romantic.

The therapist says it's a good idea to keep writing, which I was going to do anyway, but I guess it's nice to know it's officially a sound strategy for recovery.

My body had grown so used to carrying around that arm of mine that without it I was so thrown off-kilter I stumbled around like I was permanently plastered. New one's nice, though. Just feels like having an arm again.

I didn't expect to dream while I was under, and sure as hell didn't expect to remember it when I woke up. That was new, that was complicated. I have to talk to Steve about some things.

So much is blurred together in my mind, into memory and dream. I don't want to bother endlessly with questions (what was the name of that place, do you remember that time, was this actually something that happened, or am I betrayed again by my mind) but to settle some things that, to my mind, seem fundamental. So I asked him if he remembered what happened before I shipped out.

He told me I told him not to do anything stupid.

Before that, I said.

He told me we went on a double date with those two girls, but they didn't seem that interested.

Before that, I said.

Then he told me I interrupted what would have been a triumphant win for him against an asshole he was getting his lights punched out by round back of the pictures.

Before that, I said.

"Breakfast?" he ventured.

Before that too, I said.

Then he went very quiet.

"What was it to you?" I asked him.

"Guess I figured you needed to let off some steam before shipping out," he said, staring at his hands.

"But what was it to you?" I asked again. I hoped he wouldn't notice the nerves threading their way through my voice.

"It was everything, Buck," he said, and the earnestness with which he looked at me made me melt into the floor.

So I made myself brave, and I told him. I told him that I'd been in love with him for years by then. I told him how, by the next time I saw him, he'd grown so tall and strong, and suddenly other people could see in him what I'd known all along. I told him how I wanted him to have a good life in the sunshine, the chance to get married and have a family, all that normal stuff – how Carter was a smart lady with a good heart, and I wouldn’t have done anything to stand in their way, because I wanted him to be happy. I told him I knew that I could never have given him that kind of a life back then, not really.

He said we could have that life now, if I still wanted.

"I'm not sure how much of me is still that guy you used to live with in Brooklyn," I told him.

"Yeah, well I'm not still a little jackass art school dropout with asthma," he said.

"Yeah, you are," I told him, smiling in spite of myself, "even if you can sprint for more than half a block now without wheezing."

And he kissed me, so lightly and so softly, as though he was afraid I might blow away into dust at the slightest pressure – but in that moment, I felt as though I might crumble if he didn't hold me together. So I showed him, in no uncertain terms, and I think he got the hint. I asked him to stay the night with me.

"Always," he said, and I fell asleep listening to his heartbeat.

\---

I wake, and Steve is there. My palm rests over his ribcage. I feel the weight of his bones under my hand, the shift of the mattress as he leans into the touch. I feel the warmth of his breath as it floats over my cheek.

In the half-dreaming haze of the morning, I expect my senses to betray me; I expect him to dissipate, blinked away the moment I am too awake to dream. I open my eyes, and he is still there.

"Morning, Buck," he says, sleepily smiling. "You were snoring."

I feel myself smiling in return. "Well, you have the morning breath of a hundred-year-old," I tell him.

"That so? How many hundred-year-olds have you kissed?" he asks me.

"Only you, punk." We curl our arms tightly around each other and are late for breakfast.

I am home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editor's note: thanks so much to everyone who's followed Bucky on his journey. It means a lot.
> 
> Also, [the amazing gckinsey over on tumblr has created this beautiful art inspired by Bucky's story](http://gckinsey.tumblr.com/post/149099475366/art-for-the-phenomenal-fic-notes-from-a-dirty).

**Author's Note:**

> A little lighthouse keeping from the editor:
> 
> This ten-part series was painstakingly transcribed from Bucky's notebooks for the [Stucky Big Bang 2016](http://thestuckylibrary.tumblr.com/post/136429151602/authors-and-artists-welcome-to-the-stucky-big). Boy, am I grateful for his pleasantly legible midcentury penmanship.
> 
>  
> 
> [It has a soundtrack here.](http://8tracks.com/whatthefoucault/notes-from-a-dirty-attic/)


End file.
